In the video below Eli explains the importance of international SEO, and how you can easily optimize your content for international audiences to increase traffic and conversions:

Here are some key takeaways from the video:

There there is a massive opportunity to get traffic and conversions internationally — even if you don’t really have global products.

You can do this by recognizing there is a huge global audience you can take advantage of. Internet users in the United States make up only 10% of your potential traffic. You’re missing out on 90% of the entire world if you only market to the US.

Only 13% of the world speaks or has a moderate understanding of the English language. So if your content is only in English, you’re missing out on 87% of people who don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Only 30% of e-commerce in the world is done in the US, that means 70% is done outside of the US.

Take advantage of these opportunities by optimizing your keywords for what people will actually type into the search bar.

Next, understand culture and nuances. Content that works in the US might not work elsewhere. Use Google Trends and YouTube to find out what kind of content clicks with international audiences.

Do not rely on machine translations. Eli recommends going on Craigslist and looking for people who can translate content into the language of the country you’re trying to target.

When it comes to organizing the multi-language content on your site, a good place to start is by creating a category on your website called “International”, and within that category create sub-categories for various languages. This is the easiest way to optimize your site for international SEO, which yields the best results with the least amount of effort.